I think by now you know how much I love flowers, so it will come as no surprise that the flowers are my favorite part of this design. After all, what is a floral without the flowers? The flowers I have used in this design are very stylized and complex, with a number of different shapes that make up the whole flower. Not only do the colors in each part of the flower need to make sense, but they need to make sense in how they work as a whole in the flower.
In this design, no two flowers are alike, so each one is a new challenge. This particular flower was many different parts, so the colors couldn’t blend as easily and each part had to be embroidered seperately. You can see how I’ve layered the seperate parts of the inner flower with thread colors, using two colors per inner shape.
The outer parts of the flower have 2-3 colors for each petal. The bottom petals have 3 colors. You can see how I layer the colors, keeping the stitches random, but not random. Rather than long and short satin stitch, it might have been called undulating satin stitch, but keep the lengths of the stitches uneven so the colors can blend into one another.
When I layer the second color on the first, I match the angle of the two colors of thread, so they are going the same way. That makes the embroidery look seamless and the colors blend. This technique is time consuming. One flower can take all day to finish. But, OH! When that last stitch goes in and the full effect of the embroidered flower becomes clear, it’s a great feeling.
Of course, that’s when I have to move the sleeping cat off my lap.
I’ll keep embroidering and writing. The next flower is the center of the embroidery, so soon it will be more than half done. Woo Hoo! I’m inspired. I hope you are, too. Goodbye for now.
SCA Sewing: How to make a Bliaut 